Pair of Seed Hatchery Companies Shuts Down

By Andy Meek

A few companies that participated in the inaugural round of Seed Hatchery in 2011 have shut down their operations in recent months.

Work for Pie, a platform to help developers find work, and stiQRd, a QR code-based loyalty and rewards platform, have both closed down.

stiQRd shut down in April due to lack of funding and because of half the team leaving Memphis for other pursuits. Meanwhile, Work for Pie announced via a message on its website Aug. 2 that it too is shutting down, partly because of a lack of funding.

“On the surface, the reasons are simple,” Work for Pie founders Cliff McKinney and Brad Montgomery wrote. “1. Work for Pie isn’t generating enough revenue to allow us to continue working on it full-time. 2. We failed to secure additional funding to support the company as we built the business. 3. We needed to be able to financially support our families and ultimately decided that we needed new jobs to do so. 4. We didn’t think it was fair to our users, our clients or especially to our new employers to continue to run Work for Pie on a part-time basis.

“To Seed Hatchery and Start Co., thank you for getting us started on this entrepreneurial journey. Despite this outcome, we’d both do it all over again, and you helped us get off the ground. We learned a lot via Seed Hatchery, and are still learning from the folks we’ve had the privilege of mentoring over the past couple years. Thank you for taking chances on crazy ideas and hungry founders who don’t yet know what they don’t know.”